We forget most of what we consume in a few days or weeks. The forgetting curve of newly-learned knowledge depends on various factors like how meaningful it is to you, the difficulty level of the information, your stress levels, the kind of sleep you get after it, etc. A couple of ways to combat this are using mnemonic techniques for better memory representation and spaced repetition based on active recall.
Here is my current retention system:
- While reading, I highlight anything that made me reread it or taught me something new. After completing the book, I put all my highlights in one place and go through them once.
- After a few weeks, I revisit them to send them out in my newsletter (the one you’re reading).
- After a few months, I revisit them again to send them out over a Telegram channel. Going back to my old book notes to curate excerpts has a very good RoI for me.
Recently, I’ve added another layer on top of this: Readwise. It has 1-click integrations with everything I use and it took me just a few minutes to set it up. It makes it so easy to revisit my highlights that I wish I could’ve started using this sooner. It resurfaces the highlights based on spaced repetition to get the most of what I read. It also sends out a weekly digest of what I mark as favorite (feel free to subscribe).
I’ve been using Readwise for about a month now. If you read a lot of books or spend a lot of time on Twitter, give it a try. The first month is FREE. It’s simple. It works. I like it. That is all.
Until We Meet Again…
🖖 swap